Believe it. It is February 5th already and I am only now sharing holiday handmades with you! In fact, I am not really planning to share a whole lot of that because I have moved so beyond the holidays but posting here has not reflected that, so you will at least get photos of The Doll.

Throughout January, whenever I’ve thought about my blog, I have seen the word in my mind looking like this: BLAHG. Although I’ve continued to be busy with lots of fun projects—specifically baby sweaters for gifts, auction projects and a new dress for myself), I think the writing part of blogging has become less appealing to me, so before taking an extended leave of absence from this space I am going to try the “more images/fewer words” approach to posting—and hope that doing so will get me out of my rut.

Here is the doll I made for Lauren for Christmas. The tradition was dangerously close to peetering out in only its second year until Lauren told me two weeks before Christmas that I’d better “get busy” working on her doll. Okay then! I made it easy on myself by using the same pattern from last year: Wee Wonderfuls’ Kit, Chloe and Louise. I sort of love the idea of making her the same doll every year with different colored skin, hair, eyes and clothes. Would be cool to see after, say, ten years or so.

I also made socks for Kirk and both kids.

I was the recipient of some very lovely handmade gifts this year, which—if we are lucky—I will share sometime before summer.

We are headed to spend 10 days in Mexico soon and I am very excited about that. I am expecting to live in this skirt (which arrived today) whilst hoping to finish the above mentioned dress before departing. I am also planning to buy some stoneware and textiles while there. Yippee.

On Sunday we made Gingerbread Boys. I loved this tradition so much when I was a kid. My mom would put a hole in the top of the head before baking and then we would thread a bit of ribbon through and hang the finished ones on the tree. I have done away with that part of the tradition but the rest lives on, especially since I use the same recipe my mom used way back then. We invited friends over to bake and decorate with us, so I doubled this recipe.